


The Boats

by bimmyshrug



Category: IT (1990), IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Adult Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Arguing, BDSM, Bad BDSM Etiquette, Bisexual Richie Tozier, Biting, Blood, Blood and Injury, Bottom Eddie Kaspbrak, Choking, Codependency, Consensual Non-Consent, Consent Issues, Daddy Kink, Death Threats, Disabled Eddie Kaspbrak, Dom/sub, Domestic Violence, Dominant Richie Tozier, Dominant Top Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak Lives, Eddie Kaspbrak Loves Richie Tozier, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Extremely Dubious Consent, Face Slapping, Feminization, For the most part, Gay Eddie Kaspbrak, Hair-pulling, Homophobic Language, Hopeful Ending, Humiliation, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Name-Calling, No Aftercare, Not A Fix-It, Painful Sex, Past Rape/Non-con, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rape Roleplay, Richie Tozier Loves Eddie Kaspbrak, Rough Sex, Spit As Lube, Spit Kink, Strangulation, Submissive Eddie Kaspbrak, Suicidal Thoughts, Teenage Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Top Richie Tozier, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships, Urination, Violence, at least not the way fix-its usually go
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-15
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-13 13:49:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28779309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bimmyshrug/pseuds/bimmyshrug
Summary: Sometimes Eddie would tell Richie ‘no,’ or tell him to stop, but he didn’t really mean it. He just liked when Richie got rougher with him when he was being bitchy and difficult, and Richie seemed to always like it, too. But he’d never done that when they were really mad at each other (at least not this mad). Eddie had never been genuinely afraid that Richie might hurt him all those other times.-Eddie wants to tell Richie that he doesn’t want foreplay right now- he wants Richie to fucking hold him down and fuck him without enough lube and slap a hand over his mouth when Eddie starts crying too loudly.But he doesn’t know how to, so instead, he snaps “Well maybe if you switched things up sometimes, I wouldn’t be so fucking bored.”-Heed the tags and warnings.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 10
Kudos: 144





	The Boats

**Author's Note:**

> [Come chat with me on Tumblr!](https://bimmyshrug.tumblr.com/)
> 
> the angst train is pulling into the station. toot fuckin toot
> 
> if i missed any tags pls leave me a comment and let me know
> 
> ////FULL TW BELOW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS////  
> heya guys, so this fic is very, very difficult to categorize consent-wise. there is explicit rape, and for all intents and purposes, if rape is triggering to you, you should NOT read this fic. their relationship dynamic in this is unhealthy and damaged in a lot of ways, and the CNC does not take place after there's been some like, grand change and realization between them. they're still very much in the healing process during the time of this fic, and while their communication has improved and they're in therapy etc. it's still iffy. also there is no explicit establishment of adequate limits/boundaries/safewords. there are violent, very intense scenes in this fic, including a chasing/hiding scene and multiple instances of strangulation with a belt. also multiple very hurtful exchanges of words.  
> ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////
> 
> okay uhhh,, enjoy i hope. idk i really like this fic whatever

Eddie hoped that after two decades of forgetting each other entirely, relearning who one another is, battling a demon clown alien (hopefully for the last time), and an awful, messy divorce on top of that, that everything would finally be smooth sailing for he and Richie once he moved into his house in LA.

And for the most part, it is. Being together is like breathing, which is weird, because Eddie has realistically spent most of his life not knowing who Richie even was (aside from seeing him on TV sometimes and feeling horribly unsettled, before eventually lashing out at Myra and crying himself to sleep).

Being with Richie has always been suspiciously easy, and despite not knowing most of what’s happened over the past 20-something years of his life, Eddie is confident that he knows Richie better than anyone, and he’s sure Richie feels the same. Easy peasy.

Except for sex, which is bothering Eddie more than he thought it would. He spent a long, long time dreading having sex with his wife, so it’s odd to feel _disappointed_ that he isn’t having more of it. Of course, he didn’t realize he was gay at the time, but still.

When they were teenagers, they fucked all the time, everywhere. In the back of Richie’s car, in his mom’s house while she was asleep, once in Bill’s bathroom during a movie night with the rest of the Losers. They were fucking obsessed with each other.

Richie used to be unable to keep his hands off of Eddie, which is why it hurts worse that Richie seems disinterested most of the time. They’ve been going to couple’s therapy recently, which Eddie thinks is helping, but hearing the reason why Richie is hesitant to have sex with him wasn’t something Eddie knew how to prepare for.

Richie gets antsy during therapy in general (probably because it’s hard for him to sit still for an hour regardless of the topic of conversation), but once Eddie brought up how unattractive he feels and how he doesn’t understand why Richie isn’t more responsive to his advances, Richie was fidgeting so badly that it seemed like he was trying to crawl out of his skin.

Their therapist told Eddie to ask Richie directly, which he had, and Richie had struggled to even look him in the eyes, which could have been because Eddie was crying. And then Richie’s eyes flashed to his arm-or where his arm used to be, before the whole clown thing- and he sighed.

And Eddie started sobbing then, because he was afraid Richie would say he isn’t attracted to him anymore now that he’s missing an arm. The thought of it was too much to bear, but the real reason that Richie gave bothered him more.

“I’m just terrified of hurting you, Eddie.”

And Eddie honestly is grateful for that, mostly. Missing an arm is an adjustment, and he’d be more than happy never to have his life in danger like that again. But he doesn’t really understand why Richie is afraid that he’ll hurt him. Richie has never hurt him. Not really, at least.

Well, okay. When they were stupid kids, they did stupid, unsafe things and didn’t know what the fuck they were doing in a relationship, but that was on both of them. Sometimes they got into arguments and were aggressive towards each other, but honestly, Eddie is sure he slapped Richie more than Richie had ever hit or pushed him.

They were kids. Stupid, traumatized, emotionally fucked up kids who didn’t know how to handle themselves. They were so fucking in love with each other that it felt violent sometimes, and Eddie knows that wasn’t smart or healthy. Obviously, Richie knows that, too. They talked about it in therapy, minus all of the Pennywise details. As understanding as Dr. Jeong is, they’re both certain she’d have them psychiatrically admitted if they ever told her about that.

So they talked a lot about what it was like to be two repressed queer kids growing up in an awfully homophobic small town instead, which in many ways was just as traumatizing, Eddie figures. And Dr. Jeong was so kind and understanding, and put a lot of perspective into their history that Eddie hadn’t considered.

“When you feel bonded with someone over that kind of trauma, it’s easy to feel like they are the only other person in the world who can understand how you feel, and it becomes much _too_ easy to assume that they will excuse your behaviors because they understand the emotions driving them.”

That’s definitely true. The amount of unspoken understanding between them was suffocating sometimes when they were younger, and Eddie remembers being fucking mad at Richie for knowing what he’d been through. He remembers screaming and yelling and throwing things before crying and holding each other, usually down by the riverbank in the barrens so that they could be alone.

Neither of them ever wanted to talk about it, and they didn’t have to. The other always knew. Eddie knew when Richie was pissy and irritable for no reason, it was because he was struggling with the same things that sometimes made Eddie pissy and irritable, too. And since they both knew how justified the other was in being upset, it was easy to excuse their shitty behavior towards one another.

The good that came out of having those conversations with their therapist was immediately noticeable, mostly in the way that Richie has started making more of an effort to be available for intimacy and how he talks through his concerns beforehand. It’s honestly really nice. They never got to have that sort of sweet, awkward fumbling period while they figured out how to have sex when they were younger, so being able to take their time and properly love one another’s bodies and connect emotionally during sex is something Eddie appreciates; he really does.

Everything when they were teens was edged with a darkness that colored their formative sexual experiences, and Eddie hadn’t realized how much it had affected the both of them until now.

The first sexual experience they had together was right after they had gotten into a fight. Eddie doesn’t remember what it was about, but he remembers that he was so mad that he had smacked Richie across the face. Richie had grabbed him by the arm after that and threw him into a wall, and he had told Eddie to stop being a little shit, and Eddie had said “make me,” and Richie had somehow ended up with one hand wrapped around Eddie’s throat, and the other down the front of his shorts.

That became a trend for them, which Eddie now realizes wasn’t okay. They just had no other way of venting their anger. Neither of them wanted to be violent with each other, so hatefucking seemed like the next best thing. They didn’t know anything about BDSM, or safe words, or any of that shit. Eddie just knew he liked it when Richie smacked him around, and Richie liked doing it.

He can recognize that it was unsafe, and that they were playing with fire. He thinks he mostly liked it because Richie was always the only one who didn’t treat him like he was porcelain, and he got addicted to feeling like he was breakable while knowing that Richie wanted so badly to break him.

Richie would tell him that, sometimes. He’d grown a lot more than Eddie did in the years following that summer, and though he was still mostly lanky and awkward, he had a solidity and strength about him that Eddie liked. He liked when Richie would wrap his hands around Eddie’s throat and squeeze too hard and tell him how fucking easily he could steal the breath from his lungs, if he wanted to.

Richie would hold Eddie’s wrists in his hands so tight that Eddie could feel his bones shifting painfully under his skin, and he’d say how hard it made him to listen to Eddie cry and beg him to stop.

As dangerous and stupid as it was, it was always consensual. Eddie wanted to be broken just as badly as Richie wanted to break him, and he never felt less loved because of it.

There was only one time when Eddie thinks things went too far.

It was the summer before they were all leaving for college and going their separate ways. It was terrifying and they were all doing their best to resist it, but it also felt like something bigger than themselves- like they were being drawn to separate corners and away from each other, no matter how much they desperately tried to keep their fingers linked.

Eddie was pissed off at Richie because had decided at the beginning of the summer to go to college in California instead of following Eddie to New York like they had talked about, and they were finally out of time to have a mature conversation about their future. Eddie felt betrayed and upset, and he didn’t know how to voice that, but he had waited too long to try to figure it out, so he resorted to doing what he always did when he was mad- passive aggressively pushing Richie’s buttons until he snapped.

They had gone to an end of summer party at one of their classmate’s houses, and Eddie spent most of the night getting drunk and ignoring Richie. He didn’t really give a shit enough to pretend that he cared what his other classmates planned to do in the fall; he was only there because the rest of the Losers were. If it were up to him, they’d all have spent their last few weeks together hiding out in their clubhouse like they did when they were younger, saying their goodbyes in private where Eddie felt comfortable telling them how much he was going to miss them, and how afraid he was that they’d never see one another again. But Richie and Bev wanted to go to this fucking party, so the rest had agreed.

Eddie was drunk enough to be stumbling around the backyard within a few hours of arriving, and he was getting increasingly more annoyed every time he’d look in Richie’s direction to see him chatting and laughing with the other kids in their class so effortlessly. Just like Eddie was sure he would when he went off to school on the other side of the country to get away from Eddie once and for all.

By midnight, Eddie had had enough, because Richie had barely spoken to him all night, and Eddie was ready to air their dirty laundry in front of everyone. They would all be gone in a few weeks anyway; who cares if everyone in the fucking town of Derry knew they were queers?

He stomped over to where Richie was sitting by the firepit with Bev and Ben and a few other people, passing around a joint. Richie was in the middle of talking, but Eddie didn’t give a fuck to find out what he was saying before he planted himself directly in Richie’s line of sight and put his hands on his hips, starting down at him where he was sitting in a lawn chair.

“I want to go home.”

Richie raised an eyebrow up at him, before taking another hit and passing the joint to whoever was sitting on his right. “Then go home.”

Eddie clenched his fists at his sides, challenging Richie with his eyes. “You drove me here. You’re my ride.”

“I just smoked.”

“I don’t care. I want to go home, Richie.”

Richie made a show of rolling his eyes and sighing, and Eddie was sure that everyone else by the fire pit knew something weird was going on between them. Especially Bev and Ben, obviously. Eddie figured all the Losers probably knew something was going on between he and Richie, but Eddie was almost certain Richie had told Beverly directly.

“Alright, your highness. Let’s go.”

Eddie knew Richie was mad already because he didn’t even say goodbye to anyone before he started making his way to his car where it was parked in the yard of whoever’s house they were at. Eddie stomped quickly after him, trying to figure out what mean thing he wanted to say as soon as they were in the car together and Eddie could properly start a fight with him.

He slid into the bench seat and crossed his arms over his chest, not bothering to put his seatbelt on, because he was being childish, and he wanted Richie to tell him to. He wanted to make this as annoying and inconvenient for the other boy as possible.

But Richie didn’t say anything once he got into the car. He just started the engine and lit a cigarette before rolling down his window, and started carefully maneuvering his car off of the grass and onto the road in the direction of Eddie’s house.

Eddie thought about bitching that Richie was smoking with him in the car, that was always a good go-to argument. But before he had the opportunity to come up with something sufficiently passive aggressive to say, Richie spoke.

“Gonna tell me what’s going on?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Richie sighed again, and Eddie’s heart started racing in anticipation for the argument he had been trying to start all night to finally come to a head.

“You’ve been a fucking bitch all night. I don’t want to play your fucking head games. Just tell me what the fuck is going on, Eddie.”

“I’ve been a _bitch?_ You dragged me to some fuckshit party so you could get high and flirt with Barbie Stuart all night, and _I’m_ the bitch? Go fuck yourself.”

“I didn’t fucking drag you anywhere. I told you that you didn’t have to come, for fuck’s sake.”

“I’m sure you would have preferred that I didn’t.”

“At this point, Eddie, yeah, I would much fucking rather you have stayed home if I knew you were going to be a fucking asshole for no reason all goddamn night.”

Eddie took a deep breath, allowing a mixture of frantic anger and anxiety to begin clouding his mind.

“Yeah, well, you won’t have to deal with me being such a bitch anymore in a week, anyway. So you can run off to California and fuck whoever you want.”

Richie huffed out a laugh before flicking the butt of his cigarette out of his window. “Is that what this is about? You couldn’t be a big boy and tell me that with your words, Eddie?”

“I _did_ tell you! I told you I wanted to go to school together last year! _You’re_ the one who changed your fucking mind all of a sudden!”

“I didn’t change my mind all of a sudden, Eddie! I fucking _told you_ that I liked the film and media program better at UCLA, and that they gave me a way better financial aid package than NYU did. I was pretty fucking clear about that from the start. You’re just so up your own fucking ass all the time that you didn’t fucking listen to me, and then acted like I went behind your back when I told you I’d made up my mind.”

Eddie let out a humorless laugh, smacking his hand against the dashboard.

“Right! Right, because I was supposed to anticipate that you’d choose to fucking run off to the other side of the country instead of being with me like we’d talked about. My mistake.”

Richie started flexing his fingers on the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles were white, but his next words came out in an exhausted rush. “Jesus fucking Christ, Eddie, you are so god damn full of yourself.”

“Yeah, I’m the one who’s full of myself, Richie. You’re right. This is all my fault too, like it always is, isn’t it? Because you never fucking do anything wrong. It’s my fault for being a fucking idiot and thinking you actually fucking cared about me at all.”

“Eddie, fucking _don’t._ I’m not fucking doing this with you right now. I mean it.”

“I mean, Christ, Richie. If everything we’ve been through together isn’t enough to get you to show some real fucking emotion, what will be? Do you even give a fuck about me? Or any of us, for that matter?”

“Eddie, shut the fuck up. You’re seriously pissing me off now.”

“Or is it because you want to run away from me so you can pretend you’re not a faggot too, like you’ve always wanted to?”

Richie veered off of the road so suddenly that Eddie went sliding across the seat and landed against Richie’s side as he turned the car into a patch of trees and threw the car into park.

“Is that what you want to fucking hear, Eddie? Is that what you want me to fucking say so that you can pretend _you’re_ not a fucking selfish, self-centered bitch?” Richie finally yelled as he turned on Eddie, and Eddie scrambled across the bench seat to put his back against the car window as Richie screamed at him. “Did it ever occur to you for one god damn second that you could come with _me?_ Why the fuck do I have to sacrifice for _you_ all the god damn time? Why can’t you ever, just fucking _once_ take your head out of your ass? You’re going to school for fucking _business,_ Eddie! You could do that fucking anywhere! Why the fuck do I have to go live in a fucking city that I don’t want to live in and give up doing what I want to fucking do with my life for you, when all you fucking do is treat me like a piece of shit all the time?”

Eddie felt shame and guilt burn through him, but he was drunk and defensive, and he wasn’t about to admit that he might have been wrong. He got the argument he wanted, but he didn’t expect it to turn around on him this way.

“You never fucking asked! Am I a goddamn mind reader, Richie?”

Richie interrupted Eddie before he even finished his sentence, letting out a long, frustrated groan as he dragged his hands down his face. “Should I have to ask, Eddie? Do you realize how much that fucking sucks, that I would have to _ask_ if you would be willing to consider doing what I had agreed to do for you? You don’t think it might hurt my fucking feelings to think that you’d be willing to have me change my entire fucking life for you, but you wouldn’t be willing to even _consider_ doing the same for me?”

Eddie felt cornered, and trapped, and regretful. He felt too drunk to be having such a conversation, and he felt too scared to explore what the real answers to the questions Richie was asking might have been, so he decided to double down instead.

“Poor you.”

Richie punched his steering wheel and Eddie jumped, watching as Richie pressed his forehead against the backs of his hands in frustration.

“Get the fuck out of my car, Eddie.”

“No.”

“You can walk your ass home, I don’t fucking care. Get out of my fucking car.”

“How fucking high are you? I’m not fucking walking home, Richie, it’s fucking midnight!”

Richie slid across the bench seat and crowded into Eddie’s space, and Eddie held his breath, feeling his heart rate kick up as Richie got close enough for Eddie to see the full depth of the anger burning in his eyes.

He reached behind Eddie to throw the car door open, and Eddie was half-afraid that Richie really would shove him onto the ground and out of the car. But he didn’t. He stayed leaned into Eddie’s space, staring him down with their noses centimeters apart.

“Get out.”

Eddie reached behind him and slammed the door closed again.

“No.”

“If you want to salvage any fucking chance of me speaking to you again after this, you’ll get out of my fucking car, Eddie. Because right now, I’m pretty fucking tempted to do what you keep fucking accusing me of, and going to California just so I can get the fuck away from you.”

Eddie felt tears burning at his eyes, but he didn’t want to cry, so he slapped Richie across the face instead.

But Richie didn’t respond the way Eddie wanted him to. He didn’t shove him, or yell, or do any of the things he typically did in these situations that let Eddie know it was just another fight, and that they’d be okay, and they’d get past it like they always did.

He just closed his eyes and took a breath, before looking Eddie in the eyes again and saying, very quietly, “I’ll have Stan come and get you. Just please get out of my car, Eddie.”

“No!” Eddie screeched in his face, before trying to smack him again. Richie caught his hand, though, so he kicked a foot out, catching Richie in the stomach with it as he brought his other hand up to smack him on the side of the head. “Fuck you, you fucking asshole!”

“Eddie, cut the fucking shit.”

Eddie kept flailing and screaming incoherently at him, until Richie eventually wrestled him down onto the bench seat to straddle his waist and pin his arms above his head, looking angrier than Eddie had ever seen him.

“Fucking _stop!_ Why do you always do this shit? Why do you fucking push and push and push? Why do you fucking pick fights with me all the god damn time? You want to accuse me of not loving you enough, but then you fucking piss me off every chance you get until I want to _fucking strangle you!_ ”

Richie was yelling at him so loudly that Eddie’s ears started ringing when silence fell over them again, as Richie waited for Eddie to respond. And Eddie wasn’t sure if Richie wanted a real answer or not, but he wasn’t going to fucking give him one. He was determined at that point to cause as much of a fucking problem for him as he could before they went their separate ways in a week and never spoke to one another again.

“Then fucking do it already,” Eddie challenged, leaning his head back to expose his neck to Richie. “Fucking kill me, then. Put me out of my fucking misery, if it’ll make your life so much easier.”

“Stop being a fucking overdramatic bitch.”

“Stop being a fucking pussy and finally fucking do it, then.”

“Why, because you’re too much of a fucking coward to do it yourself?” Richie bit cruelly, and Eddie worked up as much saliva as he could in the back of his throat before spitting it up into Richie’s face.

Richie flinched away, but it still landed on his cheek and started sliding down onto his neck, and Eddie blinked angry tears out of his eyes as he tried desperately to slow his labored breathing.

“Fuck you. I fucking hate you.”

Richie’s grip on his wrists tightened until it was painful, and Eddie gasped in a wet breath as Richie scowled down at him.

“I fucking hate you, too.”

A car drove past them on the road without slowing down, and the headlights illuminated the cab for long enough for Eddie to see that Richie was crying, too.

He let go of Eddie’s wrists, and Eddie leaned up immediately to press their lips together. Richie shoved him back down and sniffled in a breath, pushing Eddie’s hands away when he tried to reach up and grab his shoulders.

“Don’t fucking touch me, Eddie.”

“Rich, please.”

“No.”

Eddie tried wiggling out from under Richie’s body, but he was too heavy, and there wasn’t enough space in the car for him to move. But none of this had gone how he wanted it to, and he wanted to get to the part where they kissed and made up, because this felt like it was real this time, and he was going to start panicking soon if Richie didn’t kiss him back.

“Richie, I’m sorry.”

He didn’t reply, but this time when Eddie reached up to cup Richie’s face in his hands, he didn’t push him away.

Eddie leaned up to try kissing him again, and Richie didn’t respond at first, but once again, he didn’t push Eddie away. So Eddie continued pressing kisses to his lips and his cheeks and his chin.

“I love you, Richie. I love you so much.”

“No you fucking don’t. Don’t say that to me right now.”

“I do! I love you more than I’ve ever fucking loved anybody else in my life. Don’t tell me how I feel.”

“You don’t fucking act like it. You act like you hate me and you want us both to be fucking miserable.”

“I don’t, I promise. I want us to be happy. I want to be happy together, I just….” Eddie trailed off, and one of Richie’s tears dripped down onto his cheek. “I don’t know how to be happy anymore.”

Richie leaned down and kissed him again, and Eddie wrapped his fingers in Richie’s hair, pulling him as close as he could as their mouths moved against one another. Richie wrapped his arms around Eddie’s waist and hugged their bodies as close as he could, and Eddie trailed one of his hands down to Richie’s waist to pry it between them and begin unbuckling Richie’s belt.

Richie separated their lips with a few quick kisses, and Eddie brought his other hand down as well, using both to tug Richie’s pants down enough to reach inside of his boxers.

“I want to be happy, Richie. Show me how to be happy,” he begged, wrapping his hand around Richie’s cock to stroke him to hardness, because that was familiar. That would fix this. It always did.

Richie rested his forehead against Eddie’s and started panting out soft breaths, and Eddie leaned up to press their lips together once more, but Richie pulled away before Eddie did much more than brush their mouths together, looking down at Eddie with pain in his eyes.

“I don’t know how to, Eddie. I don’t know how to make myself happy. I don’t know how to make you happy anymore. That’s why… that’s why I think you should go to New York without me. I think you’ll be happier if you can get away from me, and forget about what happened, and figure out who you are without all of this bullshit attached.”

“I don’t want to! I want to be with you, Richie. Please. Please come with me.”

Richie brought his hand down to cup the side of Eddie’s face, using his thumb to wipe away some of the tears that were still streaming down his cheeks.

“I’m going to California, Eddie. I’m sorry.”

Eddie felt a twisting, painful wave of nausea punch through his whole body, and he got angry all over again.

“Why? Why won’t you come with me?”

“I already told you, Eddie. Please don’t do this again, okay? Can we just- Can we just have a nice last week together before we leave, and see how we both feel after our first semester ends?”

Realization slammed through Eddie so suddenly that it stole his breath, and he couldn’t speak louder than a whisper when he asked, “Are you- Are you breaking up with me?”

“No, no. I’m just saying that I think we should both take some time away from each other. I think… I think it would be good for us. For both of us.”

Eddie’s panic started to edge into anger again, and he took his hand back out of Richie’s pants as it clenched up into a fist once more.

“Why? Why would that be _good_ for us, Rich?”

“I think we need space from each other, Eds. Both of us do.”

Eddie scoffed, angrily wiping his tears away with the backs of his hands.

“Right. You just want to fucking run off and fuck your way up and down the West Coast without feeling guilty about it, so you’re trying to pretend that you’re doing it for me.”

“That’s not fucking true, Eddie. Jesus Christ, have you listened to a fucking word I’ve said?”

“Yeah, Richie, I have. I’ve heard you say that you want to fucking leave me and that you don’t want to fucking be together, but you expect me to fucking sit around and wait for you to decide if you’ll change your mind.”

“That isn’t what I fucking said at all!”

“That’s fine, Richie. If that’s what you want to do, then that’s fine. You can go off and have your fun and figure out who you are or whatever the fuck you said, and I’ll do the same, okay? I’ll go find somebody who isn’t afraid to be a faggot and will hold my hand in public instead of fucking me in the ass in private so he can go play straight afterwards.”

“I’m not _playing straight,_ Eddie!”

“Bullshit you aren’t! You’re so fucking full of shit. I should have known you were going to fucking do this. I should have known you were going to fucking string me along so you could have an easy fuck for a few years before fucking leaving me.”

Richie’s expression darkened once more, and Eddie tried to wiggle out from underneath him again, but Richie wouldn’t let him.

“Eddie, _stop._ Just fucking stop.”

“No, _you_ stop. Stop fucking pretending that you ever gave a shit about me past feeling obligated to stick around after that summer. I don’t need your fucking pity, and I don’t want to be your goddamn backup plan,” Eddie bit, reaching up to try pushing Richie off of him again. Richie bared his teeth down at him and captured his wrists to pin them above his head once more.

“You think you’re my backup plan? After all of the shit you’ve put me through- the years of drama and pain and dealing with your fucking mood swings and your bullshit- you think you’re a backup plan for me?”

Eddie challenged Richie with his eyes again, still trying to hold back his tears, because he didn’t want to fucking cry anymore. He wanted to be angry.

“Seems that way. Seems like you want to cut me loose and make sure you still have something to stick your fucking dick in when you come crawling back to me after you inevitably realize that no one else will put up with _your_ bullshit, either.”

Richie laughed then, which caught Eddie off-guard, because it sounded so awful and dry. It sounded nothing like him, and Eddie tried freeing his wrists again, but Richie’s grip was still too tight.

“Fine, Eddie. Fine. If that’s what you want to believe, then fine. If you want to act like a little martyr whore who got taken advantage of and thrown away like trash, then I’ll fucking treat you like one.”

Richie let go of Eddie’s wrists then, and Eddie tried to shove him away, but Richie pressed him back down onto the seat once more with a firm push.

He used one hand to hold Eddie where he was, while he used his other hand to finish pulling his pants down onto his thighs.

“W-What the fuck are you doing?”

“You’re gonna finish what you fucking started, you little bitch. This is what you wanted, isn’t it? For me to treat you like a fucking object? Careful what you fucking wish for.”

“Get the fuck off of me.”

“No. You want to make me into the fucking bad guy, then I’ll be the fucking bad guy,” Richie growled, moving his hand from Eddie’s chest to his hair to pull his head back. “Turn around.”

“Fuck you!”

“Turn around and get on your fucking knees, or I’ll make you, and I won’t be fucking nice about it, Eddie.”

Eddie spit at him again, but it only reached his chest that time. “Fuck. You.”

He screamed as Richie grabbed him around the waist to wrestle him onto his front, trying to kick his legs out as he did it. But Richie really wasn’t holding back this time. He was serious.

Richie eventually got Eddie onto his stomach, pressing his face down into the car seat with one hand as he used the other to start ripping Eddie’s shorts down his legs.

“I’m done being fucking nice to you, Eddie. You don’t ever fucking appreciate it, anyway. So if you want me to treat you like you’re just a hole for me to fuck whenever I want, then I’m fucking going to, and you don’t get to say ‘no’ anymore.”

“Richie, stop!”

“Stop fucking screaming,” Richie ordered, before grabbing Eddie’s hips to hike them up and force him onto his knees. Eddie tried to shove him away again, but Richie caught his arms and wrestled them behind his back to hold them there in one of his hands.

Richie wasn’t fucking around. He actually wasn’t going to stop this time.

Sometimes Eddie would tell Richie ‘no,’ or tell him to stop, but he didn’t really mean it. He just liked when Richie got rougher with him when he was being bitchy and difficult, and Richie seemed to always like it, too. But he’d never done that when they were really mad at each other (at least not _this_ mad). Eddie had never been genuinely afraid that Richie might hurt him all those other times.

He quieted down at Richie’s command, but he was still crying angry tears and trying to wriggle away from him. Richie wouldn’t budge, though. He was obviously a lot stronger than Eddie thought he was, which excited him in a confusing and somewhat terrifying way.

He felt Richie spit between his ass cheeks before rubbing it against his hole with the head of his cock, and Eddie whined, trying in vain to kick out at Richie again, but Richie had his legs too far separated for him to get any leverage.

“Since you seem to like spitting so much, figured I’d return the fucking favor.”

“Rich, don’t. I’ll fucking- I’ll kill you, I swear to god.”

“Then fucking do it already,” Richie mocked bitterly, before he started to shove his cock inside of Eddie’s body.

Eddie screamed again, because it fucking hurt, and Richie grabbed him by the hair to pull his head so far back that he couldn’t get enough breath into his lungs to scream anymore.

“I told you to fucking keep it down, didn’t I?” Richie growled into his ear, pulling out to spit on his cock before pressing back inside. “Good thing you’re such a fucking whore, or else this would probably hurt pretty bad, huh?”

He spit a third time, which seemed to finally be enough, because he was able to push into Eddie so deep that his balls were pressed against Eddie’s ass.

Eddie gasped as Richie started thrusting the full length of his cock in and out of his body, fucking into him so roughly that Eddie’s vision was shaking and his hips hurt already.

“This is what you wanted, isn’t it? You always want to fucking push me and push me, you never fucking know when to stop. So if what you wanted was for me to fucking snap, then congratulations, Eddie; mission accomplished.”

Eddie felt so fucking pissed off and frustrated and fucking scared, genuinely _afraid_ of Richie for the first time in his life, and it made it extremely confusing and difficult to understand why he felt so aroused by it.

Richie was fucking him quick and rough, without any regard for how Eddie was feeling or if he was even enjoying it, it seemed. It was like he really was trying to teach Eddie a lesson, or take what he wanted without consideration for Eddie for the first time.

It felt different than the other times that they’d fight and it would eventually lead to them having angry sex and taking their frustrations out on each other. Probably because this time, Eddie wasn’t being given the option to participate, or to say no.

Eddie stopped screaming but he kept crying, because he was still mad at Richie, and mad at himself. Mostly mad at himself, which was surprising, given the circumstances.

“I’m gonna come inside of you, baby; you better fucking savor it, because it’s the last drop of my fucking energy that you’re going to get until you fix your shitty attitude.”

Richie seemed surprised to see come covering Eddie’s belly and the bottom of his shirt when he flipped him over onto his back, but he seemed downright shocked when Eddie threw his arms around Richie’s neck and kissed him, apologizing over and over again.

Things felt okay after that, even though Eddie was still afraid of what was going to happen to them at the end of that week.

He never liked being afraid. He spent most of his life actively avoiding danger before that summer so many years ago, and the only reason why he felt confident taking that risk when he did was because he was doing it with people he trusted.

So Eddie decided to trust Richie when he said that they’d be okay, and that they’d see each other on winter break, and that they’d work things out. He trusted Richie when he said he’d call as soon as he moved into his dorm room, even though that call would never come, because Richie had forgotten his name on his flight while they were somewhere over the Midwest.

And later in life, Eddie figures maybe that’s why he didn’t panic when Richie was essentially forcing himself on him- because regardless of how mad they might have been at each other, and how fucked up the shit they did to each other sometimes was, Eddie knew Richie would never really, sincerely hurt him.

And he knows that’s fucked up. He knows it’s even more fucked up that he jerks off thinking about that time in Richie’s car sometimes, too, which is why he decides to talk to Dr. Jeong about it during one of their solo sessions.

“Why do you think you revisit that memory so often, Eddie?”

“I- I don’t know. Because it’s comforting, I guess? I know that doesn’t make any sense, but I find it comforting.”

“What about it do you find comforting?”

“I don’t know… I think because I- because Richie is the only one who never treated me like I was broken, and I know that whole situation wasn’t okay and that the way we were to each other when we were younger was bad, but I miss that- him treating me like I could handle it.”

“So you feel like he treats you like you’re broken now?”

Eddie sighs and flexes his fingers against his thigh, trying not to glance at his missing arm. “Yeah, sometimes. I don’t know. A lot has changed between us, and a lot of it has been really good, really necessary change. But I don’t want to be treated like I’m some fragile little thing that he has to take care of. I hate it.”

“I’m sure you know what I’m going to say to you, Eddie.”

“Yeah, yeah. I know. ‘Talk to him about it.’”

Eddie works up the courage to do just that on his way home, and decides that the easiest way to start this conversation will be to do something decently challenging on his own, as if to say “Hey, I can manage, you don’t have to worry about me.” So he decides to make lunch before Richie gets home, because that seems like a perfectly doable task.

He decides to make pasta because he doesn’t really know how to cook a whole lot of things. Richie usually does that. Eddie was shocked to find out how good of a cook Richie actually is, considering he used to eat Cheerios with orange juice instead of milk when they were kids.

He manages to fill a pot with water and get it onto the stove on his own by resting the heft of the pot against his middle, though he’s not sure how he’ll get it back over to the sink and drain the water once it’s boiling hot, but he figures he’ll cross that bridge when he gets to it.

He’s standing on the counter searching Richie’s cupboards for a box of pasta when he hears the front door open, and Richie calls out “Honey, I’m home!” in a horrible caricature of Desi Arnaz that still manages to draw a snorting laugh out of Eddie before he rolls his eyes.

“Kitchen!”

He hears Richie’s footsteps walking to the kitchen before they speed up to a run, and then he’s being lifted up by the waist and dragged back down onto the ground.

“Eddie, what the fuck are you doing? You could fall and crack your fucking head open! Dr. Vera said your balance is-”

“I know what Dr. Vera said,” Eddie snaps at him, and Richie takes a stumbling step away from him before putting his hands up in placation.

“Okay, sorry.”

Eddie hears Dr. Jeong’s voice in the back of his head telling him not to dismiss Richie’s concerns, and he takes a breath.

“No, I- sorry, I didn’t mean to be an asshole. I just- I know. I know it’s an adjustment, and that I’m gonna struggle and be clumsy and shit, and I know you’re worried,” Eddie softens, reaching up to brush his thumb across Richie’s cheek. “But I’m not gonna figure out what my new normal will look like if you don’t let me try to do things on my own.”

Richie leans down and presses a quick kiss to Eddie’s lips before wrapping him up in a hug, resting his chin on top of Eddie’s head.

“I know, I’m not trying to be a shit. I just don’t want you to get hurt.”

“I’m being careful, I promise. But… life is dangerous sometimes, and treating me like I’m made of glass isn’t gonna change that.”

“So… I can’t just roll you up in bubble wrap before I leave every morning?”

“Unfortunately not. Plus the risk of suffocation would probably be more dangerous than anything.”

“Drats,” Richie sighs, before pulling away to hold Eddie at arms’ length and give him one of his crooked little smiles that Eddie didn’t realize he’d missed so much for the past two decades.

“Sorry, champ.”

“Can we at least try that whole ‘compromising’ thing that Dr. Jeong talked to us about, and agree that climbing up on the counters is maybe not the best call? Can I get you a step-stool or something?”

Eddie crinkles up his nose. “A step-stool? Am I a grade schooler?”

“’Bout as big as one.”

“Fuck you! It’s not my fault that your cabinets are ridiculously high up! What is this rich people shit? Who needs cabinets that tall?!”

“Guess I found the perfect spot to keep my snacks so you don’t steal them all.”

“Eat a dick.”

“Are you offering? Because I am pretty hungry.”

Eddie sighs, gesturing towards the pot that’s now boiling on the stove. “I was trying to make lunch before you got home.”

“What were you trying to make?”

“Just some spaghetti,” Eddie says, then cuts eyes at Richie, who shockingly shows an ounce of restraint this one time.

“You don’t think pasta is sort of heavy for lunch? Plus I’ve got to work out before I eat anyway, or I’ll get cramps.”

“Who the fuck are you?” Eddie scoffs playfully, and Richie shrugs down at him before lifting the pot of water and carrying it over to the sink.

“A washed-up comedian who is banking on this new role to singlehandedly hoist me up out of the depths of irrelevancy.”

Eddie bites his lip in thought and watches as Richie pushes his glasses up into his hair so that they won’t fog up before carefully pouring the steaming water into the sink. “Could I work out with you?”

Richie raises an eyebrow at him before shrugging again and drying his hands on a kitchen towel.

“Um, yeah. I could probably modify some-”

“’Modify’ my ass. I can keep up.”

“Baby, modifying your ass would be a crime,” Richie winks before gracelessly nodding his glasses back down onto his nose, and Eddie snorts out a laugh as he reaches up to straighten them out.

“Now I see why you’re putting so much stock in this role, Rich.”

“Ouch, Eds; watch your step. Those are my feelings that you’re stomping all over.”

Eddie used to work out when he was still with Myra, mostly because going to the gym and being alone before he went to work in the morning was his favorite time of day. He realizes pretty quickly that he’s out of shape, and being not-quite-adjusted to his missing limb definitely doesn’t help. He still does what he can though, which is easier with Richie encouraging him the entire time.

Mostly he watches Richie, which is an unexpected treat. Richie was always lean when they were younger, but now he’s a _man._ A strong, broad man, and Eddie feels guilt mixing around in his gut when he gets frustrated that Richie doesn’t use all that newfound strength to toss him around like he used to.

Eddie has to tap out of pushups pretty quickly, but he manages to do ten, and he’s pretty fucking proud of himself for that. Richie does 30 before he lies down on the ground in a fetal position to pant in breaths, and Eddie rolls his eyes before kicking him gently in the side.

“C’mon, get up.”

“Working out is mean, Eds.”

“Get off the floor, you giant baby.”

“You’re mean, too,” Richie pouts up at him, but eventually he does drag himself up off of the floor. “I hate this. Why do people do this for fun? Who enjoys this?”

“I loved working out,” Eddie shrugs. “I want to start again, but I have to figure out a new routine,” he adds, before wiggling the shoulder where his missing arm used to be.

“I seem to recall someone saying, quote, ‘modify my ass.’”

Eddie rolls his eyes again before bumping Richie with his hip. “Alright, I can admit that I maybe underestimated how much different it would be, and how fatigue would affect me.”

“You don’t have to make excuses, Eds; you can just admit that I totally kicked your ass and am stronger and better than you.”

“Bullshit. I can still beat your ass in a foot race, and we’ll test that theory tomorrow morning.”

“Are you seriously going to make me go for a _run?”_

“Sure am.”

“What did I do to deserve this?”

“Challenged me. I know it’s been a while, but you know better than that, babe.”

Eddie agrees to let Richie help him make lunch after that, and Richie agrees to let Eddie try chopping some of the vegetables for their salad, and the world doesn’t end. The whole ‘compromising’ thing really does seem to be working; who would have thought?

One of the perks of dating a semi-celebrity is that Richie has a decent amount of downtime when he isn’t actively filming something or touring, so they have a lot of time to just be together and reconnect right now. For everything Eddie knows about Richie, it seems like 2 others have changed.

“You were _married?”_

“Briefly. Very, very briefly. Like Carmen Electra and Dennis Rodman brief.”

 _“Why?_ And to who?”

“Midlife crisis, and a stripper I met in Atlantic City after a show with, like, the biggest boobs you’ve ever seen. Huge. Each of them was, like, the size of my head.”

“Alimony payments must be a hefty price to pay for a momentary lapse in judgment caused by tit blindness.”

“Actually, we settled out of court; she was really cool about the whole thing. She gets 30% percent of my tour merchandising, and in exchange she signed an NDA promising never to tell the press that I spent our wedding night sobbing and begging her to leave me alone. Pretty cool chick.”

He also finds out that Richie quit smoking when he was thirty, but started up again after he got his call from Mike. Eddie decides to lighten up on his criticisms after that, but makes Richie promise to cut it down to 3 a day- one after each meal.

“Okay, but what about after sex? That’s, like, a classic. I don’t know if I can break that routine any time soon.”

“Only if I decide that you’ve done a good enough job.”

“That’s, like, so hot. Deal. I’m so into that.”

The ease with which they adjust to the parts of each other that they aren’t familiar with anymore makes it all the more difficult for Eddie to cope with the drastic changes in their sex life, but he figures that if they can be so open and communicative about everything else, then he can be honest about this, too.

So that night when they go to bed, Eddie decides to initiate differently than he normally does. He does most of the initiating nowadays, which is another thing that made him feel self-conscious before they talked about it in therapy, but Richie said that he just doesn’t want to make Eddie feel like he has to say yes if he’s in pain or discomfort just because Richie asks. Eddie thought that was very sweet, but didn’t have the heart to say that he misses when Richie cared less about his comfort.

Richie is sitting cross-legged on top of the comforter working on his laptop when Eddie comes to bed, and he looks focused, which almost makes Eddie change his mind. But he’s pretty confident that whatever Richie is working on is less exciting than having sex with him, so he pushes on.

He climbs up onto the bed and Richie doesn’t even glance over at him, so Eddie crawls to kneel in front of him, and takes a steadying breath before slamming the lid of his laptop shut and grabbing it out of his lap to toss it onto the foot of the bed.

“Dude, what the fuck?”

Eddie shoves Richie backwards onto the bed before climbing into his lap, and Richie still looks like he’s trying to figure out what’s going on.

“I want you to fuck me.”

Richie laughs, but he rests his hands on Eddie’s thighs before sliding them up underneath his shorts. “You couldn’t ask me nicely?”

Eddie hesitates before switching gears, and he leans down to press kisses along Richie’s jaw and up his cheek until his lips are against Richie’s ear. “Will you fuck me, Daddy?"

~

_“D-Daddy, fuck-”_

_“What the fuck?”_

_“I- Sorry, I-”_

_“What the fuck did you just call me?”_

_“I’m sorry- ah!”_

_“You’re fucking disgusting, huh? God, you’re a little freak.”_

_“Richie-”_

_“I thought I was ‘Daddy’ now?”_

_“Get the fuck off of me, just fucking forget I said anything.”_

_“No, no, no. Get your ass back here and make Daddy come.”_

_~_

Richie’s grip tightens on his thighs and Eddie gasps, wiggling his hips down on Richie’s lap until he can grind into his hardening cock.

“Eddie…”

“Please, Daddy?” Eddie asks again, before gently biting Richie’s earlobe between his teeth as he waits for an answer, because he’s afraid to look Richie in the eyes in case he gets rejected.

But Richie wraps his arms around Eddie’s waist and pulls him down tighter to his body, before flipping them over and pressing Eddie down into the mattress.

“Of course, baby.”

It’s not quite the response that Eddie was hoping for, but Richie also didn’t reject him, so he figures that’s a decent start.

He realizes that things aren’t going the way he wants them to when Richie starts by doing the same thing he does every time they have sex lately: very gently, very carefully stripping Eddie’s clothes off before sucking his cock. Not that Eddie is one to complain about a blowjob, but something about it feels compulsory, and he doesn’t like that. He doesn’t like that their sex life is formulaic.

He doesn’t realize that he’s mad until he reaches down to pull Richie’s head away from his cock and grabs his hair much harder than he intends to.

Richie’s eyes flash up to his as his mouth is pulled away from Eddie’s cock, and he looks fucking pissed, and a vivid memory flashes through Eddie’s mind of lying in Richie’s bed while his entire family was sleeping just down the hallway, ripping at Richie’s hair as hard as he could with his fingers because he was trying so hard to keep quiet with Richie’s head between his legs.

He thought Richie would be mad at him, which he was, but he also looked captivated when he straddled Eddie’s chest and came all over his face after he’d finished sucking Eddie off and spit his own come into his mouth.

“I don’t want you to suck me off, I want you to fuck me.”

“You know, you’re the only bottom I know who would bitch about foreplay.”

Eddie wants to tell Richie that he doesn’t want foreplay right now- he wants Richie to fucking hold him down and fuck him without enough lube and slap a hand over his mouth when Eddie starts crying too loudly.

But he doesn’t know how to, so instead, he snaps “Well maybe if you switched things up sometimes, I wouldn’t be so fucking bored.”

Richie looks confused for a moment before he looks _angry,_ and Eddie feels so fucking guilty for the way it makes his breath catch in his lungs.

“Didn’t realize I was such a _boring_ fuck.”

“You’re not, so I don’t know why you act like one.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“It means that you fuck like you’re an old man now.”

Eddie doesn’t know why he’s egging Richie on and goading a reaction out of him, but he’s sure Dr. Jeong would say it’s because it’s easier for him to coax the response he wants out of Richie rather than have a serious conversation about it, or something. Either way, it works, because Richie climbs off of him and sits down on the bed before grabbing Eddie by the hair and dragging his head into his lap.

“Fine, then you can suck my cock and do all the fucking work, and I’ll lie here and do nothing instead.”

Eddie wants to get defensive at the implication that he doesn’t do anything during sex, but Richie is pulling so firmly on his hair that the thought passes out of his head as quickly as it comes, and he opens his mouth right up as soon as Richie grabs hold of his cock with his other hand and begins to rub the head against Eddie’s lips.

He isn’t able to get a full breath in before Richie pushes his cock into Eddie’s mouth, and Eddie gags for a moment as he tries to breathe in through his nose before Richie begins using his grip on Eddie’s hair to pull his head down further onto his cock.

He gags again when Richie’s cock hits the back of his throat, and Richie’s fingers tense in his hair as he curses under his breath.

And Eddie remembers that Richie always liked it when he’d gag on his cock, and sometimes he’d hold Eddie’s head down and see how long he could keep it there before Eddie had to pull away, gasping in breaths between choking coughs. Sometimes, he’d stroke his cock while he watched Eddie try to catch his breath, and he’d come all over his tear-stained cheeks before Eddie was able to get his breathing under control again.

Eddie allows himself to gag again, and when he glances up at Richie through his tears, Richie looks captivated by him in a way that Eddie hasn’t gotten to see in what feels like a lifetime.

“So pretty, baby; so fucking pretty with my cock down your throat.”

It’s the dirtiest talk Eddie’s gotten in a long time, and the effect it has on him is immediate. His cock throbs so aggressively between his legs that he has to reach a hand down to stroke himself as he throats Richie’s cock as deeply as he can, allowing drool to come spilling out of the sides of his mouth as he does so.

Eddie doesn’t move after that and blinks up at Richie, trying to communicate with his eyes that he wants Richie to take over. It seems to work, because Richie holds onto his hair a bit tighter before guiding Eddie’s mouth up and down the length of his cock.

He seems so much less concerned with accidentally hurting Eddie, or being too rough, or all of the hang-ups he’s been having lately. He even sort of _does_ hurt Eddie with the force of the grip on his hair, and it makes Eddie nearly giddy as he relaxes in Richie’s lap and lets him use his mouth.

“If you missed sucking my cock so much, you could have just said so. You don’t have to act like a little bitch to get me to fuck your pretty face.”

If Eddie’s mouth weren’t occupied, he might make the argument that he clearly _does_ have to act like a bitch to get what he wants, because all of his gentle encouragement and direct come-ons have been met with resistance, and bitching at Richie is the only thing that seems to have actually gotten him what he wanted.

But he doesn’t say that, even when Richie pulls Eddie’s mouth off of his cock and allows him to take a few heaving breaths. What he says instead is probably worse.

“Sorry, I forgot being a little bitch is your thing now.”

Richie looks shocked and confused again before the anger comes back, and he throws Eddie down onto the bed by his hair.

“Tread lightly, Eds. You’re starting to sincerely piss me off.”

Eddie knows he should stop. He knows he should.

“Didn’t think you were capable of that anymore. I was starting to think your temper went as doughy as your body has over the years.”

Richie lunges forward like he’s going to hit him, and Eddie braces for the impact, but it never comes. Instead, Richie grabs him by his ankles and drags him closer before kicking Eddie’s legs open with his knees.

“You think you’re real fucking cute, don’t you?”

Eddie doesn’t reply because Richie is reaching for the lube on his nightstand, and Eddie’s breath catches in his throat again when Richie starts lubing up his cock right away.

“I don’t know where this fucking attitude came from all of a sudden, but if you need me to fuck it out of you, I will.”

“Not sure that you can anymore.”

“I promise you kitty, I’m not too old to put you in your fucking place.”

It comes as a sincere, exciting, instantly addicting shock when Richie grabs him by the backs of his thighs before shoving into him, without fingering him first. Richie’s cock is always a lot to take anyway, but it’s nearly overwhelming when he takes Eddie without prepping him first, and Eddie finds himself gasping in breaths as his body lights up in pleasure at the uncomfortable stretch of Richie pressing into his body.

When Eddie blinks his eyes open, he realizes that Richie is looking at him in a way that he hasn’t in years: like Eddie is a piece of meat.

“Got nothing to say now?” Richie teases when he bottoms out and Eddie is still just lying there, gasping and overwhelmed. “Looks like I’m doing all the work again anyway, huh? Don’t know why I let you get away with being a little fucking pillow princess when you’re such a fucking brat.”

He starts fucking Eddie roughly right away, and Eddie is amazed that he hasn’t come already. He doesn’t think he’s been this aroused since high school, and he knows he should stop pushing and quit while he’s ahead. He knows he should.

“You’re right, it must be so difficult and exhausting to climb on top of me and fuck me missionary for 20 minutes every 3 days.”

Eddie knows he should probably be embarrassed by how quickly he comes when Richie scowls down at him again before wrapping one of his hands around Eddie’s throat. He doesn’t even squeeze before Eddie is coming without even touching himself, which is something he hasn’t been able to do since high school.

When he does squeeze, it’s much too hard, and Eddie is sincerely frightened by how quickly his breath leaves him and how fragile his neck feels in Richie’s hand, which he’s sure isn’t obvious to Richie, considering the fact that it forces a loud, animalistic moan out of Eddie’s mouth as he’s fairly sure he comes a second time, which he doesn’t think has ever happened to him before.

When Richie doesn’t let up his grip, Eddie starts to panic a little, because he sincerely can’t breathe. He realizes that Richie might not realize how hard he’s gripping around Eddie’s throat because he hasn’t choked him since they were stupid, awkward teenagers, and Richie had significantly less strength with which to do so. He doesn’t know his own strength anymore.

Eddie has a million conflicting thoughts colliding in his head as he realizes this, but the loudest thought is that he needs to breathe or else he might actually fucking pass out. So he reaches his hand up to tap Richie on the shoulder, but Richie responds by squeezing harder.

“Awe, is it too much for you after all, kitty?”

Eddie makes a gurgling, groaning sound in the back of his throat, and his fingertips are starting to go numb as he balls up a fist and starts punching the side of it into Richie’s shoulder instead.

Realization seems to wrack through Richie very suddenly, based on how quickly he lets go of Eddie’s throat and climbs off of him in one motion, with a look on his face like he’s terrified. Like he’s watching Eddie die again, and then a lot of things start to make sense for Eddie as he continues coughing and gasping in air to catch his breath as Richie sits frozen next to him, looking horrified and upset and _scared._

Eddie eventually catches his breath just fine, but by then, the damage is already done. Richie is very clearly trying not to cry, and he looks like he’s afraid to try to touch Eddie, which hurts, truthfully. Because Eddie knows Richie wasn’t trying to hurt him, and he doesn’t want him to feel bad. He doesn’t want Richie to feel guilty for giving Eddie what he was obviously asking for.

“I-I’m so sorry, Eddie. Jesus fucking Christ, what the fuck is wrong with me?”

“No, no; it’s okay,” Eddie tries to say earnestly, but his voice sounds more raspy and torn up than it does encouraging or comforting. “I’m okay, I promise.”

Richie doesn’t respond, and he looks like he might get up and run away. He won’t stop fidgeting where he’s kneeling on the bed spread, but he still won’t touch Eddie, so Eddie sits up and reaches out to touch him instead.

Richie flinches when Eddie cups his face in his hand, but he doesn’t pull away, so Eddie kisses him gently on the mouth. “I’m okay, Rich. I promise.”

“I didn’t mean to do that.”

Eddie sighs, deciding now is the time to nut the fuck up.

“Yes, you did. And it’s okay, because I wanted you to. I _know_ that you know I wanted you to. You don’t have anything to feel bad about, Richie.”

“Listen to how fucked your fucking voice is, Eddie; I could have fucking killed you!”

_Do you have any fucking idea how easily I could kill you, kitty? I could snap your little fucking neck like a twig._

“I- I know. But you wouldn’t do that,” Eddie assures him softly, shuffling closer to pull Richie’s head to his chest before taking a deep breath.

“Rich, you know it’s… it’s okay.”

“What- What do you mean?”

“It’s okay that you like hurting me. It doesn’t make you a bad person.”

Richie goes stiff, and Eddie considers pussying out, but he presses on.

“It really is. And- And I like it, too. I really like it. I think maybe we both have some weird hang-ups about how we used to be to each other when we were kids, but we’re adults now. We’re grown men. We can talk about things first, and make sure we’re being safe.”

“I don’t want to talk about this, Eddie.”

“Richie, come on. I talked to Dr. Jeong about it, and-”

 _“What?_ What the fuck, Eddie?”

Richie pulls away from his chest to look at him incredulously, and Eddie doesn’t consider his other options before doubling down.

“Yeah, Rich, I talked to her about it. And we both think that you’re probably freaked out about it because of what happened and me losing my arm, and now you feel like you need to protect me all the time. But you don’t have to protect me, Richie. It’s okay to let me experience things that might hurt me.”

“Stop talking to me like that, Eddie.”

“Like what?”

“Like you know what’s going on inside of my head. You fucking don’t.”

“I’m not trying to assume how you feel, Richie; I just think it’s pretty obvious that after- after I almost died-”

“Eddie, _don’t.”_

_Eddie, fucking don’t. I’m not fucking doing this with you right now._

“This… this isn’t all because of the clown, is it? You’re still upset about the fight we got into before you left for school, aren’t you?”

_“Stop.”_

Richie sounds like he’s begging, but Eddie just wants to get this all on the table, for fuck’s sake. He’s tired of all of this weirdness between them.

“Richie, you don’t have to feel bad about that, you know. I… I started that fight. It was my fault, and- and, you know, I was obviously really fucking hurt when you didn’t call me once you were in LA, but I know now that that wasn’t your fault. You shouldn’t feel guilty about that, either. You know that, right?”

Richie isn’t replying anymore. He’s staring at the bedspread, and he won’t look Eddie in the eyes.

“I started that fight with you on purpose, you know. I was being childish and immature, and I just wanted to fight with you because I didn’t know how to have a sincere conversation with you about how I felt. It wasn’t your fault.”

Richie still isn’t responding, and Eddie decides to push harder, even though he knows he shouldn’t.

“And… and, you know, I knew you weren’t really going to hurt me that night. I know you weren’t- weren’t trying to hurt me. I know you were just mad, and- and- we both did stupid, fucked up shit when we were mad at each other, Richie. So I hope you’re not holding onto guilt from that, either.”

“If memory serves, I don’t think you ever raped me, Eddie.”

Hearing Richie say it out loud is startling. So startling that Eddie doesn’t know how to react, because he didn’t really expect Richie to say it at all.

He finds himself at a loss for words, and he sits there, trying to figure out what to say. Trying to decide if he should tell Richie that they shouldn’t be comparing wrongdoings, and that the amount of times Eddie slapped and kicked and spit on him were equally as unacceptable. Maybe he should default to his usual argument that they were fucked up kids who didn’t know any better, and that neither of them saw it that way at the time- it was just another fight that got out of hand.

Or he could be honest and tell Richie that he liked it, and that he still thinks about it while he fucks himself rougher than Richie dares to anymore.

But while he’s thinking, Richie stands up and walks out of the room, and he doesn’t even have the courtesy to slam the door as he leaves.

They don’t talk again until the following evening, because that’s when Richie comes home. Eddie wants to be hurt by the fact that Richie stayed out of the house all day to avoid talking to him, but he understands. And the benefit is that it gives him plenty of time to rehearse what he wants to say over and over again all day while Richie is gone.

Richie brings home sushi from a very, _very_ expensive restaurant, and Eddie wants to bitch at him for it, but he knows Richie is probably trying to assuage his guilt by doing something nice for him, just like he always has. Ever since they were kids, if Richie joked too mean or hurt Eddie’s feelings by accident, he’d be sure to make up for it by bringing Eddie sweets or drawing him little doodles for him. He’s never been good at saying “I’m sorry” out loud.

Not that he has anything to be sorry for this time. But clearly he thinks he does, so Eddie takes that into consideration while they quietly eat dinner together, and Richie asks Eddie what he’s been up to all day, and tries to brush this all under the rug and forget about it, because that’s what he’s most comfortable doing.

Eddie strategically waits until later that night when Richie is already sitting on their bed working on his laptop to try talking to him again. He carefully brings 2 mugs of cocoa with him and Richie must know something is up as soon as he walks in the door, because he freezes before reluctantly closing his laptop and placing it on his night table.

He smiles tightly at Eddie as he sits down on the bed with him, but still holds out a hand to take one of the mugs that Eddie offers to him.

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. Figured a cold weather comfort is still allowed despite the fact that I’m fairly certain I’ll never see snow again living in this fucking seasonless abyss of a city.”

Richie snorts out a laugh before taking a sip of his cocoa. “Is this your way of telling me you wanna move back to Derry? Missing all that northern Maine weather?”

 _“Fuck_ no. But maybe somewhere with seasons would be nice, like Chicago or Boston.”

“New York?”

“New York was fun in college, but all the rats freak me out. There’s a documentary about it on Netflix that I definitely should _not_ have watched, and it’s sort of ruined the charm of the city for me.”

“There’s a reason not to live in every city on earth, babe. I think we’ll make do just fine wherever we end up,” Richie assures him with a little smile, and for him, that’s practically a marriage proposal, and it makes Eddie’s heart leap in his chest.

There’s silence for a few moments as Eddie also sips at his cocoa and tries to work up the courage to say any of the millions of things he’s thought about saying all day, but none of them feel right anymore. Still, the silence is suffocating, so Eddie says what’s on the tip of his tongue once too much time has gone by without an exchange of words.

“I forgive you.”

Richie is avoiding his gaze, opting instead to stare into his steaming mug. Eddie wants to chicken out and pretend he never said anything in the first place, and let Richie sweep this under the rug along with all of the other fucked up shit from their past.

But he also wants to spend the rest of his fucking life with the man sitting in front of him, who is currently letting the steam from his cocoa fog up his glasses like a fucking dweeb instead of dealing with his feelings, and Eddie has known that he loves Richie for a long, long time, but he’s never been surer of it than right now.

He scoots forward until his knees are touching Richie’s where he’s leaning against the headboard, and he reaches over to place his mug on the night table next to Richie’s laptop. He reaches forward and takes Richie’s glasses off of his face before wiping them clean the best he can on the corner of his shirt, just like he would when they were kids, and he’d notice when Richie’s glasses were dirty with dust and fingerprints because he was always staring at his eyes when he wasn’t looking.

Richie is watching him while he does it, and blinks before meeting Eddie’s eyes after he places them back onto the bridge of his nose.

“I forgive you, Richie. And I hope you forgive me, too.”

“Forgive you for what?”

“For all of the equally fucked up shit I’ve done to you over the years.”

Richie stares at him blankly before forcing on a smile, and Eddie knows he’s going to make a joke before the words even leave his lips.

“Don’t worry, Eds; I won’t take you to small claims court over all my comic books that you borrowed and never returned.”

“Rich, I’m serious. I… I know I hurt you. I know I hurt you bad when we were kids. We took out a lot of shit on each other in fucked up ways, and I’m sorry. But I know you’re sorry too, and I forgive you.”

Richie’s face falls back into an unreadable mask before his eyes start welling up with tears behind his glasses. Eddie knows he’s trying not to cry, but honestly, he probably needs to cry. So Eddie pushes his glasses up into his hair before pulling Richie’s head into his chest.

Richie resists it for a moment before pressing his face into Eddie’s shoulder, and it takes another moment before he lets out a sob that’s filled with pain- years of sorrow that Richie has likely never let out before now. Eddie is a crybaby in therapy, but Richie has never really shed a tear. The only other time Eddie recalls seeing him cry was when Eddie woke up in the hospital.

Eddie lies back on the bed and takes Richie with him until Richie is essentially lying on top of him with his head buried into Eddie’s chest. Eddie lets him cry for a long, long time- long enough that he cries a big wet spot into Eddie’s t shirt.

Eddie holds him the entire time and doesn’t offer any words of comfort, because he doesn’t think that’s what Richie needs right now. Comfort always feels like it’s meant to get you to stop feeling your feelings, Eddie thinks. And Richie needs to feel these feelings.

So he gently scratches his fingernails against Richie’s scalp and the back of his neck, over and over again until Richie’s cries die down to sniffles, and eventually, after he’s cried all of his tears, he lifts his head to look down at Eddie like he has no feelings left inside at all.

“How are you feeling?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Do you want to talk it out?”

“Not really, but I know we probably should.”

It’s a hard conversation for Richie to have, obviously. It’s hard for Eddie too, of course, but he hadn’t realized how much guilt Richie has been holding onto all this time until it all comes pouring out of him at once, and Eddie has a hard time keeping up with the tide once the floodgates open.

“And I just feel like I fucking- like it was my fault. It was all my fault, you know? I- I fucking hated you, Eddie. It hurts to admit that, but I think I hated you just as much as I loved you, and I just wanted to fucking _hurt you._ It wasn’t accidental, Eddie. I hurt you _on purpose_ because I wanted you to feel the fucking pain I felt all the goddamn time, like it would make anything better. I knew it wouldn’t, but I just- I just felt better knowing you were hurting, too, and that was so fucking fucked up of me.”

“You think my experience was any different, Rich? I didn’t know how to fucking talk to you without starting an argument. It’s not like I was a fucking angel and a battered wife. I did the same shit to you. I pissed you off on purpose because I wanted to fight with you all the time, because I liked being able to blame you for why I was so fucking angry. And I was never worried about you leaving, because in my head- in my head, you weren’t _allowed_ to leave me. We were bonded by so much fucked up shit that the idea that you might leave me never even crossed my mind, and I think that’s why I got so fucking upset about you going to LA instead of coming to New York with me, because it shocked me and terrified me that you realized you had options other than being with me.”

“That wasn’t an option, Eddie. My intention was never to leave you, I just- some part of me recognized that what we were doing was fucking awful for each other, and I listened to it for the first time that summer. And I knew that if you could get away from me, you’d have time to figure out what you wanted, and if what you really wanted was to be with me. Obviously all of that didn’t fucking matter anymore when I forgot who the fuck you were somewhere over South Dakota, but-”

Richie cuts himself off and he looks like he might start crying again, and Eddie reaches for one of his hands where he has them folded in his lap.

“Sometimes I think about how fucking hurt you must have been, and how- how upset you were when I never called. And I know that it wasn’t my fault, I _know_ that. But thinking about how fucking- how you thought I- I did _that_ to you and then just _left you_ and never spoke to you again… it made me throw up the first time I thought about it, Eddie. It makes me feel like the worst fucking person alive.”

Eddie swallows down his gut reaction, which is to comfort Richie and tell him it’s okay and that he was fine. Because the truth is, he wasn’t fine. He decided the night before he was supposed to leave for school that he was going to kill himself if Richie hadn’t called by the morning, but he’d chickened out when he thought about his mother finding him dead.

“I’m not going to lie, Richie, that was… those were probably the worst few days of my life, aside from the clown. I was so- I don’t think I’ve ever been so hurt in my life,” Eddie starts, and despite doing his best not to cry during this conversation so he can be the tough one for Richie this time, he chokes up before he can finish speaking. “I spent that whole week wondering what the fuck was wrong with me, and why I was so awful and worthless that you couldn’t even call me to say a last goodbye-”

“I’m so fucking sorry, Eddie,” Richie whispers, and Eddie knows he’s crying again too, even though he’s staring at his hands in his lap again.

“Let me finish, Rich,” Eddie says gently, before taking a deep breath in and continuing. “I did a lot of reflecting, and I realized- I realized that you were justified in leaving me, and never speaking to me again. I realized that I had spent all of our teenage years treating you like fucking garbage and expecting that you’d put up with it forever, because I had made myself your burden. And while the reason why I realized those things turned out not to be true, I’m still thankful that I realized them. Because when I woke up in the hospital and got to hear from everybody all about how you dragged my almost-certainly-dead body out of that fucking sewer, I knew I was never, ever going to make you feel that way again, if you decided that you’d give me a second chance.”

Realizing the amount of guilt that they’re both holding onto fucking sucks, but it’s also the most honest they’ve ever been with one another. Once they’ve gotten all of their apologies out, Eddie decides he has one more he needs to make before he feels like they can move on from all of their shitty communication and emotional self-flagellation.

“Richie, I’m… I’m sorry for how I acted yesterday. I just didn’t know how to bring up how I’ve been feeling about our sex life, and-”

“So you meant it when you said I’m shit in bed? Ouch, Eds,” he laughs, but Eddie can tell he’s sincerely a little hurt, and Eddie feels like such a fucking asshole.

“No, no. You’re amazing, Richie. It’s not a matter of you being good or bad in bed, it’s- it’s that I want something that I’m not sure you want to give me, and I think I just need to learn how to be okay with that.”

“Are you gonna ask me to piss on you?”

“Shut up,” Eddie rolls his eyes, and Richie looks sincerely worried about what he’s going to say next. “I just… I think you have emotional hang-ups about having rough sex, and I totally understand, and I don’t want you to do anything you’re not comfortable with. But sometimes I just… I just want you to be mean to me, you know? I just want you to fucking toss me around like you used to, and maybe that’s… maybe that’s selfish, and if it is, I need to just learn to be okay with that, because your comfort is way more important to me.”

Richie sighs, and Eddie braces for bad news. “Yeah, I… I had a feeling. I’m just- I’m terrified of hurting you, Eddie. It gives me so much fucking anxiety.”

“Why do you think you’re going to hurt me?”

“Because I obviously can’t tell when I am, based on last night. And you’re just-”

Richie’s eyes flash down to his missing arm, and Eddie feels anger rush through him that he tries to stamp out. “It’s just different now than it used to be.”

“It really, really pisses me off that you think I’m weak, Richie.”

“I don’t think you’re weak!”

“You treat me like I’m broken now, and that fucking hurts, Rich. I understand that me almost dying was traumatic for you, and I know that you want to protect me. But I’m fucking strong, Richie. I’m fucking _brave,_ just like you said, and I think I proved that pretty fucking solidly already. So please don’t treat me like I can’t handle anything I could handle before, because I can.”

“I know you can; I know you’re strong and that you can handle yourself, Eddie. It’s just hard for me to do things that I know might hurt you after I watched you nearly die. That’s like- that’ll stick with ya, you know? I mean, fuck. It’s all I fucking think about. It’s not because I think you’re weak; you’re the strongest fucking person I know, Eds.”

“Then what would be so bad about smacking me around a little?”

“I just… it wasn’t just for funsies when we were kids. I sincerely wanted to fucking ruin you, and it’s not easy for me to, like, separate those feelings from sex now.”

Eddie hesitates before saying what he says next, but he figures if they’re having this conversation finally, then he’s going to have the fuck out of it. “So you never feel that way anymore? Honestly?”

“What do you mean?”

“You don’t get mad at me anymore? You don’t like hurting me? You don’t still want to make me cry? Those feelings are just totally gone?”

Richie looks confused, and speaks very slowly when he responds. “I’m not angry at you like that anymore.”

“That’s not what I’m asking. To be blunt, Richie, I’m asking if you still get off on the idea of fucking me like you hate me.”

“I… yeah, Eds, I do. But I’m trying to move past that.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s fucked up!”

“It’s really not fucked up, actually. Lots of people are into BDSM-”

“Right, but the reason that _you_ are into it is because I fucked with your fucking brain when we were younger. You wouldn’t be into all of this shit if I didn’t actually fucking do those things to you.”

“So what?”

The question seems to take Richie off-guard, and he raises his eyebrows in shock while Eddie continues. “So what if that is the reason why? So what if the reason why _you’re_ into it is because I fucking encouraged it by trying to get you to fuck me every time you were mad at me? Lots of shit that people are into sexually comes from trauma, but that doesn’t make it _bad,_ Richie. And looking at it as an inherently bad thing is just, like, re-traumatizing yourself, and trying to teach yourself that you’re bad and the way you think is broken when it isn’t.”

“You sound like a shrink.”

“Probably because all of this is the exact same shit Dr. Jeong told me when I talked to her about it.”

Richie looks skeptical, and Eddie starts nodding before Richie even asks him his next question.

“She thinks that’s a good idea?”

“Yeah. She said that we’re doing a kickass job with communication and honesty, and that it would probably be good for us, if we both want to and feel ready.”

Richie ends up talking to their therapist about it as well and seems genuinely shocked when he talks to Eddie about it afterwards and confirms that she really does think it’s a good idea. Eddie resists the urge to say “I told you so,” and instead decides to talk about the logistics, like adults.

Deciding on a safeword and discussing limits and all of that shit is weird and stiff, and Eddie isn’t the biggest fan, but he knows it’s an important part of the process. It seems like it’s more important for Richie, though, because he knows Richie wouldn’t go farther than what he knows Eddie can handle. Still, he’s happy to give Richie that peace of mind.

“Limits?”

“None.”

“Eddie.”

“I’m serious, I don’t have any.”

“So if I squatted down and took a fat shit on your chest, you’d be cool with that?”

“Ew! What the fuck?”

“Exactly, so give me a real fuckin’ answer.”

“Shitting on me is definitely a hard fucking limit, Jesus Christ. And, I guess… I guess ass to mouth? Anything poop related is just an automatic red light,” Eddie decides. “What about you?”

“Also not into shit, and don’t hit me in the nuts. That won’t make me sexy mad, it’ll just make me chunder and ruin the mood.”

“Got it, no nut shots. That it?”

“For now,” Richie sighs, then pauses before adding, “Well… and I guess if you’re gonna spring something on me without warning me first, just make sure you’re ready to go. I don’t want to end up taking a trip to the ER to get your asshole sewn up.”

“Wow, Rich; you sure know how to get me in the mood.”

All of their conversation and planning goes so well that Eddie sincerely believes it’ll all go off without a hitch, but then the high of positive communication wears off, and Richie gets distant again. Eddie figures he’s second-guessing or getting cold feet, which is fine; he’s allowed to. But Richie also told Eddie he could initiate whenever he wants, so he decides to do just that when he wakes up one morning to find Richie already out of bed and sitting on the couch in the living room, probably scrolling through Twitter.

Eddie doesn’t realize that he’s mad at him until he finds himself ripping Richie’s phone out of his hand and tossing it onto the coffee table with a clatter.

Richie instantly looks annoyed, and Eddie feels a weird, itchy excitement all over his skin.

“I thought we talked about this, babe. You can ask me nicely if you need my attention so urgently.”

“Can I? Because you sure talked a big game last week, and you haven’t fucked me at all since then, despite me being very fucking nice to you about it. So was that all just to get me to shut up?”

Richie considers him carefully for a moment before leaning back further into the couch cushions. “That was the plan, though it doesn’t seem to have worked, since I’m still sitting here a week later listening to your bitching.”

Eddie feels tears well up in his eyes almost immediately, and Richie jumps up from the couch with concern in his eyes.

“Eddie, baby, I’m sorry! I thought you were just-”

Eddie interrupts him with a slap across the face, and instead of getting angry, Richie looks like he might start crying, too.

“Eddie, are you- are you actually mad at me?”

Eddie almost backs down then, because he is mad at Richie. And he doesn’t want Richie to be sincerely upset with him, but at the same time, he does. Because Richie should be mad at him. Because Richie had a right to be mad at him all those years ago, and all he’s done since they remembered each other again is carry around all of this guilt and hurt and upset over their past- something Eddie was equally to blame for. Richie should be mad because he has a right to be, and so does Eddie.

So Eddie smacks him a second time.

Richie’s hand shoots out to grab Eddie’s wrist after he’s made contact with his cheek again, and when he looks back down at Eddie, there’s a darkness in his eyes.

“Eddie, cut the fucking shit.”

“Why the fuck did you even ask me to move in here with you? So you could fucking babysit me? I already did my time in a loveless, sexless relationship; I don’t plan on doing it again.”

“What the fuck are you saying?”

“I’m saying that if you’re going to treat me like your old fucking pal- or worse, your _burden-_ I’m going to fucking leave. I don’t want to be treated like a goddamn invalid, Richie, and I won’t be.”

Richie’s grip on his wrist tightens, and Eddie holds in a gasp.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Eddie, I’m not treating you like a goddamn invalid! I watched you almost fucking _die,_ I think I’m allowed a certain amount of concern for your wellbeing, for fuck’s sake!”

“Boo-fucking-hoo, Richie. I lost a goddamn arm and had to be resuscitated, and you don’t see me walking around fucking crying about it all the time. I’d like to spend the rest of my life fucking _living,_ and that includes getting to be who I fucking am. So if that’s too much for you to handle, then I’ll go, Richie, since it’s so fucking hard for you.”

Richie scowls down at him, and he still won’t let go of Eddie’s wrist.

“Maybe if you didn’t act like nothing has fucking changed, I wouldn’t feel the need to be worried about your safety all the fucking time. Nobody is saying you’re broken or weak or whatever the fuck you keep accusing me of thinking, Eddie; you’re missing a fucking limb. You’re going to be limited for a while, and you should stop treating me like a fucking villain for recognizing that.”

“I’ll stop treating you like a villain when you stop treating me like a fucking victim and start treating me like your _partner.”_

“Okay, Eds; so treating you like my partner means not being concerned about you at all? Got it.”

“No, but it means letting me make my own decisions because I’m a grown man, and not fucking me like you’re afraid I’m gonna fall apart.”

Richie rolls his eyes and scoffs, and Eddie flexes his wrist in Richie’s hand, but he knows he won’t be able to pull out of his grip.

“Is that what this is all about? Jesus Christ, Eddie, I never thought I would be the one saying this, but not everything is about sex for fuck’s sake. We’re grown men, there are much bigger priorities in both of our lives now than fucking each other’s brains out.”

“I’m sure that’s easy for you to say, since you didn’t spend 20 years of your life repressing who you fucking are. Maybe you got to get it all out of your system with the junkie prostitutes you had to pay off so they wouldn’t tell the press you’re a faggot, but I didn’t have that luxury, Rich.”

“You’re acting like I never fucking touch you! You _do_ realize we have more sex than most people our age probably do, correct? We’re not fucking celibates, Eddie.”

“Age has nothing to do with it! I want to have sex with you because I fucking _love you,_ you fucking asshole! And it really fucking sucks that you clearly don’t feel the same way! I didn’t realize that making love to me had a goddamn expiration date!”

Richie looks surprised, and Eddie isn’t sure when he stopped feeling in control of this situation, but the vulnerability that he desperately tries to beat back all the time is rearing it’s ugly head, and he wants to stay angry. So he speaks again before Richie has the opportunity to say something kind or reassuring.

“Or, wait; is it _your_ age that’s the problem? That’s what it is, isn’t it? You’re too fucking old to get it up whenever you want anymore?” Eddie laughs cruelly, and Richie’s nostrils flare as he sucks in a sharp breath.

“That’s really fucking mature, Eddie.”

“I’m not _trying_ to be mature, I’m trying to get fucked. But if that’s not something you’re capable of anymore, I can go find somebody younger. I’ll go down to Boystown and find someone who will fuck me like a man, and then when I want to be treated like a child, I’ll come back home to you. Sound fair?”

Richie is getting sincerely angry now; Eddie can tell because his eyebrow keeps twitching every once in a while, and his lip is starting to curl up to bear his teeth down at Eddie.

“Maybe you’re right, Eds. Maybe I shouldn’t have invited you to come live with me, because I saved your fucking life, and all you’ve done in return is act like an ungrateful, spoiled whore, just like you’ve always been.”

Eddie wants to smack Richie a third time, but his hand is still in Richie’s grip, so he gathers up the saliva in his mouth instead and spits up at him.

“Fuck you.”

Eddie screams so loudly that it echoes around the house when Richie uses his grip on Eddie’s wrist to throw him onto the couch. Eddie stumbles halfway there and ends up landing painfully on his knees on the floor with his face pressed into one of the seat cushions, and before he has the chance to move, Richie grabs him by the back of the neck to keep him facedown.

“You keep saying you want me to fuck you like a man, but all you fucking do is act like a teenage girl,” Richie growls into his ear, leaning his body on top of Eddie’s as he kneels behind him on the floor. “So I think what you really want is for me to fuck your little pussy sore so that you have a real reason to be such a whiny cunt.”

Eddie can hear Richie unbuckling his belt behind him, and real terror rips down his spine. He tries to scream again, but he can’t get a breath in because of how hard Richie is pressing his face into the couch cushion.

He reaches up to throw a blind punch and clips Richie on the side of the head before frantically grabbing onto his hair as hard as he can and pulling with all of his strength, until he can feel strands ripping from Richie’s scalp.

Richie lets go of him to pry Eddie’s fingers out of his hair with a scream, and as soon as he does, Eddie lets go on his own to scramble away as quickly as he can and run toward the stairs.

“I’m going to beat the fucking shit out of you, you little bitch,” Richie yells from behind him, and Eddie can hear his footsteps chasing after him as he starts running up the stairs with his heart pounding in his ears.

He makes it halfway up the steps before he turns to look at Richie as he starts running up the stairs after him, but as he’s looking away, he trips over his own feet and stumbles. It’s quick, but it’s enough time for Richie to grab his ankle and pull him down the stairs, and Eddie tries to brace himself with his hand as his legs and forearm scrape painfully against the carpeted steps.

“Get the fuck off of me, you fuck!”

Richie manages to pull Eddie down far enough to get him kneeling on the steps, and Eddie can feel his knees bleeding into the carpet as Richie starts dragging his boxers down his legs so aggressively that they rip at the seams and fall off of his hips.

“I’m just giving you what you fucking wanted, Eddie. Since you think you’re such a big fucking tough guy, you can handle it, can’t you?”

Eddie kicks his foot out at Richie’s knee where it’s resting against one of the steps, and keeps kicking until Richie loses his footing enough to fall down the few stairs back to the ground floor.

Eddie scrambles the rest of the way up the stairs as Richie is picking himself up off of the ground, and he’s nearly hyperventilating by the time he turns the corner and gets to the top, realizing that he’s effectively trapped himself up here.

He doesn’t take the time to think before ducking into the nearest guest room and stuffing himself under the bed, trying to slow his breathing the best he can as his tears quietly patter against the carpet underneath him.

He hears Richie walking up the stairs and briefly wonders if he’s hurt, because his steps sound slow and deliberate.

“I suggest that you come out from wherever you’re hiding, Eddie; if I have to find you myself, you’re going to fucking regret it.”

Eddie stays perfectly still where he is, holds his breath, and waits.

He regrets climbing under the bed the way that he did because he can’t see out into the room to look for Richie’s feet, and panic starts crawling all over his body as he wonders why he can’t hear Richie’s shoes against the hardwood in the hallway.

He’s considering trying to quietly turn around underneath the bed when a shriek rips its way out of his throat as he feels Richie grab his ankles and drag him out into the open.

He can taste blood in his throat as he continues screaming and desperately tries to claw at the carpet, but his cries are abruptly cut off as he feels Richie slip his belt over his head.

“Shut the fuck up! Shut up!” Richie growls into his ear, and Eddie feels his heartbeat in his skull as Richie pulls tighter on the leather around his neck. “I fucking told you- I _told you_ not to fucking hide from me, you stupid bitch.”

Eddie’s vision starts to go spotty and he’s so lightheaded that he’s fairly certain he’ll pass out if this goes on. He tries to swallow some of the saliva and blood that’s in the back of his throat but the cinch around his neck is too tight, and he only succeeds in letting out a pathetic little gurgle before he starts coughing.

Richie grabs him by the hair before loosening his belt, and Eddie sucks in a desperate lungful of air the best he can with his head pulled back so far.

Richie uses his grip on Eddie’s hair to drag him across the carpet, then forces Eddie up onto his feet before shoving him down onto the bed.

He straddles Eddie’s waist before pinning his wrist with one hand, using the other to grab Eddie by the jaw so he can force the smaller man to meet his gaze.

Eddie is fairly sure he’s never seen Richie this angry in his life, and it’s fucking terrifying. It’s scary in a way that he doesn’t think he would have been able to prepare for if he’d tried to, because he doesn’t see the Richie he knows at all anymore in those glacial eyes.

“Apologize.”

“Suck my fucking dick.”

Richie smacks him across the face, and the weight of his hand forces Eddie’s head to painfully whip to the side as he lets out another bloody, desperate cry.

Richie grips his jaw again and pulls his eyes forward once more, and Eddie tries to blink the spots out of his vision as Richie scowls down at him.

“Apologize to me, you fucking cunt.”

Eddie turns his head down into Richie’s fingers before biting down, sinking his teeth into the meat of Richie’s hand just underneath his thumb.

Richie cries out before letting go of Eddie’s wrist to clutch at his bleeding hand, and Eddie shoves him off balance the best he can before throwing himself down onto the floor.

Richie tries to grab out at him but Eddie scrambles away before he manages to get a solid grip on his shirt. He stands up as quickly as he can and runs out into the hallway so he can go back down the stairs and create some distance between them again, but he makes the mistake of trying to take Richie’s belt off of his neck in the process, so he doesn’t see when Richie reaches out to grab him by the shoulder, pulling on the leather strap with his other hand.

Eddie’s breath leaves him all at once again, and Richie lifts him up by the waist from behind to begin carrying him over to the banister that overlooks the first-floor landing.

Eddie tries to scream but it comes out as those same desperate little gurgles as before. He kicks his feet out erratically to try to throw Richie off-balance and claws at Richie’s arm around his waist, feeling the other man’s skin come up underneath his fingernails.

But Richie doesn’t budge, and continues on until he can force Eddie’s hips up against the railing.

He unfastens his belt from around Eddie’s neck, and Eddie lets out an animalistic wail before trying to turn his head so he can bite and scratch at any part of Richie he can reach.

But Richie is faster and grabs him by the hair, tugging his head back so far that Eddie is practically looking up at him with the back of his head pressed into Richie’s shoulder.

“What do you think you are to me, Eddie? Hm? Because it seems like you’re just a leechy little shit who lives in my fucking house, eats my food, and mouths off to me all the fucking time,” he growls into Eddie’s ear, and Eddie can’t get a breath in between his sobs to give a response- not that he really has one, anyway.

“So maybe- maybe we both would have been better off if I had left you down in that fucking sewer to rot,” he continues, and Eddie’s terror climbs abruptly as Richie starts bending him at the waist, dangling his chest over the railing.

“Richie- Richie, stop! Richie _stop!”_

Eddie’s panic hits its peak when his feet start to leave the ground, and he lets out a scream so loud that his ears pop as his bladder unexpectedly gives out, sending urine streaming down his thighs.

Richie catches him before he goes flying over the railing to his death, wrestling Eddie’s arm behind his back to press his hips down painfully into the wooden banister.

Richie starts laughing, and Eddie is worried that he’s going to vomit. He watches as snot and drool mixed with his blood go dripping from his face and onto the wooden floor of the landing below him.

“And now you’re pissing all over yourself like a fucking child? Jesus Christ, Eds; where did all that fucking bravado go?”

“Richie, please, _please!_ I’m sorry!”

Eddie tries to get his footing, but his toes can barely reach the ground, and the floor is too wet with his urine for him to get a grip at all.

“It’s too fucking late for that now, you dumb cunt.”

Eddie considers trying to kick his feet out when he feels Richie spit down into his ass crack, but he’s too afraid that the force of it will send him over the railing.

So he goes limp instead, resolving to allow the blood to rush to his head as he hangs precariously over the banister, and he doesn’t even flinch when Richie pushes his cock into his body.

“Smart of you to finally fucking give up on fighting me.”

Eddie turns his wrist in Richie’s grip to press their palms together, and Richie laces their fingers before he begins fucking into Eddie so roughly that the banister shakes underneath him.

An odd, unexpected calm washes over Eddie all at once and he closes his eyes, and at first he thinks it’s because all of the blood really has gone to his head. But he realizes that it’s genuine when he blinks his eyes open again and stares down into the terrifying distance between him and the bottom floor of their home, and he doesn’t feel afraid. He just tightens his grip on Richie’s hand.

He realizes while he’s dangling there that he hasn’t let go. He’s been accusing Richie this whole time of not letting shit go, but Eddie has been just as guilty- guiltier, even.

Because he doesn’t need to fucking do everything on his fucking own. He doesn’t need to see every helping hand as an act of charity, and he doesn’t have to see assistance as an accusation of weakness.

He’s been pushing Richie away this whole fucking time. He’s been pushing him away since they were kids, because it’s easier that way. It’s easier if Richie doesn’t care about him, because then Eddie can stop hurting him so much all the fucking time.

It would be easier if Richie didn’t love him, because then maybe Eddie could forget the look in Richie’s eyes when he died.

And that’s fucking selfish. It’s selfish to be angry at Richie for caring about him, just like it was selfish to accuse Richie of not caring all those years ago. Because he’s always tried to do what’s best for both of them. For _all_ of them.

He’s startled once more when Richie reaches forward to pull him back up to safety, dragging Eddie over to a clean part of the floor before bringing them both down to the ground.

“Eddie? Eddie, baby, are you alright? Fuck, I’m sorry, that was too much; I just-”

“No, I- no, it wasn’t too much,” Eddie assures him softly, though his voice is so trashed that it’s more rasp than words. “I’m- I’m okay.”

“You promise?”

“I promise,” Eddie assures him, before climbing into his lap to reconnect their bodies. To finish what he started.

He thought he knew what letting go felt like this whole time. He thought he knew when he came to terms with his role in the fate of the world as a child, and when he realized he’d never get that call from Richie in LA as a teenager. He thought he knew when he decided not to kill himself after all and continued living to spite a lover who no longer remembered his name. He was sure he knew when he felt cold creeping into his heart, and he knew that he was going to die.

But letting go isn’t thinking- it happens in your gut and in your veins. He knows that now, and he knows Richie does, too.

“I fucking love you. I love you so fucking much, Richie. I love you.”

“You know I love you more than fucking anything, Eddie. You _know_ that.”

“I do; I promise, I do.”

Eddie has privately wondered if he really came back to life since the day he woke up in the hospital. He’s wondered if he wouldn’t be able to cope with dying, so God made his heaven here with Richie, in a reality where they might be okay someday.

But he knows he’s alive, now. Alive and full, and fucking _living,_ and in love. Flayed, and not running. Bloody and hurt and festering, but okay.

“Richie- Richie-”

“What is it, baby?”

“Can we get married? Do you want to marry me?”

“Since the day we fucking met, Eddie; that’s never changed.”

**Author's Note:**

> sooooo bimmyshrug is over party? or did y'all like it


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